The United States expressed concerned Tuesday about the possible return of Guinea junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara to his country, a US State Department official said Tuesday. “Any effort by Dadis to return to Guinea would concern us,” said the official who requested anonymity.

Guinea’s junta chief Moussa Dadis Camara, hospitalised in Morocco after a December 3 attempt on his life, left Rabat late on Tuesday for Burkina Faso, a source in the Burkinabe presidency said. “He has left Morocco and is coming to Ouagadougou. We are waiting for him,” the source said.

Preparations for presidential elections scheduled for the end of February or the beginning of March – elections which have already been postponed numerous times since 2005 – have again reached an impasse in Côte d’Ivoire.

President Umaru Yar’Adua of Nigeria has told the BBC in London that his health is improving after treatment in Saudi Arabia and that “as soon as my doctors discharge me, I will return to Nigeria to resume my duties.”

China is responsible for the increased prices African producers of oil and gas are currently receiving for their produce in the international market, Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming said in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the start of a five-nation African swing.

China has opened a new trade window with Ethiopia, announcing a series of new measures aimed at bolstering industrial investments and encouraging Chinese firms to set up industrial parks in the East African nation.